The Seduction of Authoritarianism

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” - Lord Acton, 1887

The most dangerous shifts in a society rarely arrive with a bang. They arrive in a whisper — a seductive promise of restored pride. They grow out of legitimate frustration, and they are often welcomed by a disenfranchised populace desperate for order and prosperity. This is the grim lesson of the 20th century’s most infamous regimes, and it is a lesson we cannot afford to file away as mere history.

Most dictators begin with populist ideas that cater to a weary population. On the surface, many of their ideas make sense. Other leaders simply shift blame for a failed economy onto convenient scapegoats. And here’s an uncomfortable truth: in the beginning, both Mussolini and Hitler, two of the most reviled leaders in history, were seen as a solution.

Mussolini promised to make the trains in Italy run on time — and he did. He launched massive public works programs, draining malarial swamps, building autostrade, and creating jobs. He restored a sense of national purpose by invoking the glory of the Roman Empire and championing traditional values. For a time, it workedbeautifully. Italy’s economy stabilized, national pride returned, and a grateful people traded a measure of liberty for perceived security and vitality.

Hitler delivered on an even larger scale. He built the Autobahn, slashed unemployment through rearmament and public works, and tore up the humiliating Treaty of Versailles. To Germans who had known only shame and breadlines in the wake of World War I, he was the architect of a miraculous recovery. He gave them jobs, pride, and a powerful narrative of national destiny.

The strongman delivers. He solves the immediate, deep-seated problems of a broken economy — unemployment, stagnation, lost confidence — and in doing so earns a vast reservoir of trust and goodwill.

This is the critical, deceptive first act. Yet even in those early successes we find the beginnings of destructive policies. Women’s primary role was framed as motherhood, and abortion wasoutlawed. Scapegoating became strategy: communists, Jews, foreigners, or “internal enemies” were blamed for the nation’s woes. Semi-criminal methods to retain power emerged almost immediately. Paramilitary thugs — Blackshirts in Italy, Brownshirts in Germany — used street violence to intimidate opponents and crush dissent. 

Media was co-opted or censored. Institutions were gradually purged of anyone not fully loyal. Leaders surrounded themselves with sycophants. The propaganda machine went into full gear, framing the great leader as strong and decisive. What started as pragmatic economic fixes morphed into a cult-of-personality fever.

Once his power was consolidated, the leader’s head swelled. Imperialism took hold — Mussolini’s invasions in Africa, Hitler’s Lebensraum, or geographic expansion. The economic “miracle” became a war machine, and the temporary strongman morphed intoa permanent tyrant. 

Sound familiar?

History’s one notable modern exception to this grim pattern is Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew — perhaps the only dictatorship in modern history that, though far from perfect, produced overwhelmingly positive results, Lee turned a poor, resource-scarce, ethnically divided city-state into one of the world’s richest, cleanest, and most efficient countries. 

He achieved this through pragmatic, long-term policies: export-led growth, aggressive foreign investment, low taxes, strong property rights, anti-corruption measures, and meritocracy. Public housing created broad homeownership and social stability, while strict laws and urban planning delivered safety and livability. The results were transformative, lifting millions out of poverty in a single generation.

Yet Singapore’s success came with real costs. Political repression limited dissent, media was controlled, and overly paternalistic policies — such as aggressive population controls — created long-term challenges, especially Singapore's aging society. Punishment was harsh, including the death penalty for some drug and firearms offences. Concentration of power raised concerns about nepotism and stifled political vibrancy.

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Many years ago, I was asked by someone in US politics if I would ever consider running for office in Canada. My answer was unequivocal: no. Why not? I replied that to get elected, I would have to tell the majority of the electorate what they wanted to hear. I’m not programmed to do that. 

I went on to suggest that repairing the damage to the States caused by the 2008 financial crisis would require a 10-year mandate without elections — as opposed to the current US system, where elections every two years create a permanent 24/7 campaign cycle. Politicians are always campaigning, making promises they cannot keep, and only secondarily governing. I added that America is broken and needed deep structural changes, including getting big money and excessive lobbying out of politics.

Many Americans are now feeling the same things that fueled earlier strongmen: deep frustration with inequality, disenfranchisement, and debt. Institutional distrust. A sense that the system no longer delivers for ordinary people. America likes to see itself as a “free country” and a “champion of democracy,” but most citizens are sliding backwards while the politicians cater primarily to the donor class. 

There is a growing sense that decisive action is needed to fix broken systems: erratic tariffs, loyalty tests in government, skepticism toward independent institutions, and rhetoric that frames opponents as existential threats rather than fellow citizens. We’re seeing dissent delegitimized, division amplified by social media, and laws and norms ignored or bent for short-term political gain. 

These patterns are not identical to 1930s Europe, but the frustration, scapegoating, and erosion of guardrails are certainly familiar. The only real difference thus far is that Republican campaign promises have not yet produced the economic miracles of previous strongmen.

Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.” And it’s true that most democracies eventually succumb to corruptionand fail. Ray Dalio’s description of how republics decline includes: loss of competitiveness and productivity; widening wealth and values gap; excessive debt and financial overextension; money printing and currency debasement; internal disorder; political polarization; overextended military and costly external conflicts; and a decline in education, innovation, and infrastructure.

Again I ask: sound familiar?

So, what’s the solution? I can offer an interesting model. The Roman Republic offered a middle ground between chaos and tyranny. During the Roman Republic (roughly 509–27 BC), the dictatorship was an emergency constitutional office designed for severe crises. It was not permanent or self-appointed; it was a temporary grant of supreme authority to one man to resolve a specific problem as quickly as possible.

A dictator was appointed through Senate recommendation followed by consular nomination. Only a sitting consul could appoint a dictator, and a consul could not appoint himself. Guardrails were robust: a strict six-month maximum term (or less, ending when the crisis was resolved); a narrow, specific mandate; no self-perpetuation; continued presence of other magistrates with oversight; financial limits requiring Senate approval; and strong cultural norms of honor and duty. 

These checks worked for roughly 300 years across about 85 dictatorships, most of them brief and effective. The system broke only in the late Republic (roughly 133 BC – 27 BC) when Sulla and later Caesar received open-ended powers, eventually turning emergency rule into permanent autocracy. 

The lesson is clear: temporary, accountable emergency authority can save a republic without destroying it. That said, there’s always the risk that a leader will use (or create) a crisis to justify “temporary” absolute power. Hitler used the Reichstag fire—the 1933 attack on the German parliament in Berlin—to suspend civil liberties and entrench his supreme status. And apart from Singapore and the Roman Republic, I can’t find another example of ultimate power doing more good than harm.

No political system lasts forever. Even the most elegantly designed governing model is at risk of being dismantled by the one thing no constitution can counter — human nature and the lure of greed, ego, and power. As we’re seeing, the fuse of fascism, once lit, burns slowly at first, then picks up speed. 

So the question for our time is this. Can we find a middle ground, where politics lives apart from actual governing? Where competent, long-term decision-making is insulated from nonstop campaign cycles that thrive on “Tell ‘em what they want to hear.” Where guardrails prevent a leader from sliding into the destructive pattern that history has shown us. And where a population’s legitimate frustration is addressed with real solutions, not a self-serving leader in a cult of personality.